Holly Grove came into prominence during the 1912-1913 coal strike and mine war as the site of a major tent colony established after Paint Creek miners were evicted from their homes by coal companies. In 1912, Fred Mooney recalled it as a small place with only a post office, a few stores, and a handful of dwellings that quickly spread along Paint Creek and into the ravines with long rows of tepees and wall tents occupied by striking miners and their wives and children, swelling the population into the hundreds. The area also saw heavy violence during this period, with several people killed on both sides of the conflict. The most notable incident came on the night of Feb. 7, 1913, when the town was sprayed with machine gun bullets from the armored plated Bull Moose Special. William G. Blizzard later said the special train, designed by the C&O railroad to transport strikebreakers into Paint Creek and Cabin Creek, included an engine fitted with sheet iron to protect the engineer, a passenger car, and a baggage car lined with thick iron plates and armed with two machine guns and about 15 high powered rifles; on that night it also carried 30 additional rifles bought by Quinn Morton, who had begun the strike with his lockout. After Morton called on C&O officials to send the Bull Moose to Charleston to pick up Bonner Hill, sheriff of Kanawha County, about 16-17 men rode the train as it approached the union stronghold of Holly Grove around 11 pm. It is not unlikely that union miners, warned of the train's approach, fired on it first, but in any case the Bull Moose opened fire on Holly Grove, where women and children as well as armed men were asleep, and in the narrow valley the distance from the tracks to the town was point blank.